Saturday, May 31, 2014

Well, I guess it takes just an average American working a regular job to figure out how to best deal with our nations woes (that would be me, btw). Drifting off to bed last night I suddenly realized how to utterly destroy the Mexican Drug Cartels, those organizations of total misery. Its easy, in fact, to do and here is how:

Give the President of Mexico command authority over 2-3 armed drone wings (based in America but flown over Mexican soil). They would have to be under Mexican supervision because no politician in our southern neighbor would ever be relected if they knew US forces were killing Mexicans on Mexican soil. Drones could be used to kill drug lords in their compounds, or on their way to meetings, or to kill the people who are killing the Mexican police, mayors, and other government officials.

Eliminating the influence of the drug lords south of the border has been a near-impossible task. The huge amounts of money flowing through the cartels pockets are more than enough to bribe anyone, and those people foolish enough not to take the bribes are often gunned down in the streets, or even beheaded. Even the Mexican military has been corrupted by the tens of billions of dollars of drugs flowing through Mexico and into the United States (and beyond). The fact is that the armed forces of Mexico have been so corrupted that the government in Mexico City has been unable to truly stamp out the cartels and their lethal influence using federal firepower. Drug lords are often tipped off by military officials when a raid is being planned or executed, avoiding the traps to capture or kill them, and here in lies the answer: armed drones dont tell people they are coming and the enemy cannot be tipped off. They are also rarely seen, being somewhat stealthy.

In Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and nations like Yemen, armed drones like the Reaper have been very very effective in eliminating terrorists. In fact, more than 70% of Al Qaida's leadership has been eliminated over the last 10+ years by such tactics. The Israelis regularly use armed drones to kill terrorist leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other death-dealing groups. Imagine what the President of Mexico could do in 6 months against the drug cartels in his own country if he has such firepower available to him. To prevent any unathorized use, the drones could still be stationed in the USA, or near Mexico City under US troop control (as "advisors").

Eliminating the lethal flow or death and drugs from Mexico into the USA should be a top priority for any administration and this armed drone proposal should be implemented as soon as possible. I hope the folks in Washington DC are listening....

China has deployed three nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines to a naval base in the South China Sea, according to a recent photo of the vessels that appeared on the Internet.

The three Type 094 missile submarines were photographed at the Yalong Bay naval base on Hainan Island, located at the northern end of the South China Sea.

The submarines appear to be part of China’s plan to begin the first regular sea patrols of nuclear missile submarines.

Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, voiced concerns about Chinese missile submarines in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in March.

“China’s advance in submarine capabilities is significant,” Locklear said. “They possess a large and increasingly capable submarine force. China continues the production of ballistic missile submarines. … This will give China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent, probably before the end of 2014.”

Disclosure of the strategic submarine deployment comes as China sharply increased tensions over the weekend after one of its naval vessels rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in disputed waters claimed by both countries in the region.

Meanwhile, China on Tuesday called recent Japanese military aircraft incursions during joint Chinese-Russian war games in the East China Sea both dangerous and provocative, further escalating tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.

The photograph of the three missile submarines is the latest example of state-controlled media signaling new strategic nuclear capabilities by China.

The submarines, also called the Jin-class, are equipped with 12 multiple-warhead JL-2 submarine launched ballistic missiles that have a range of up to 4,900 miles.

Meanwhile, one of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarines based in Guam last week deployed for missions in the Asia Pacific and likely will conduct surveillance of China’s submarine forces in the region.

The submarine was monitoring a large Chinese-Russian joint naval exercise in the northern East China Sea that ended this week.

The Air Force also has begun long-range Global Hawk drone flights over Asia as part of a summer deployment of two of the unmanned surveillance aircraft to Japan.

On Tuesday, a Chinese general called the intrusion into military exercises by Japanese warplanes “dangerous” and “provocative.”

“Japan unilaterally stirred up the military jets’ encounter over the East China Sea,” Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, told Xinhua, referring to the Japanese jets’ confrontation by Chinese jets.

The jets flew in the unilaterally declared Chinese air defense identification zone that Tokyo, Washington and other Asia states do not recognize.

The incident occurred as Chinese and Russian warships were engaged in naval maneuvers.

“Japan’s move, like its decision to purchase the Diaoyu [Senkaku] Islands in 2012 so as to change the status quo, is very dangerous and provocative,” Sun said

The encounter between Japanese and Chinese jet fighters took place May 24 over open waters as the Japanese sought to monitor the military exercises.

The Vietnamese fishing boat sank Monday after colliding with a Chinese patrol vessel near the disputed Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea, where China raised tensions by beginning undersea oil drilling.

“We remain concerned about dangerous conduct and intimidation by vessels operating in this area by the Chinese,” she said. “We continue to call on all parties to exercise restraint and take steps to lower the tensions and conduct themselves in a safe and, of course, professional manner.”

Relations between Hanoi and Beijing remain tense over the maritime dispute. Protests were held recently in communist Vietnam against communist China.

There have been unconfirmed reports that Chinese military forces were massing near the Chinese border with Vietnam. The two nations fought a brief conflict early 1979, after Chinese forces invaded and captured several cities before retreating.

Regarding the missile submarines, Andrei Pinkov, a military analyst with Kanwa Defense who reported on the submarines May 1, said the three submarines at Hainan are a sign Beijing is speeding up the pace of deployments. Also, a review of the photo indicates that one of the three submarines could be a more advanced missile submarine called the Type 096, based on an analysis of the length of missile submarines, he stated in his journal Kanwa Defense Review.

The deployment is “intended to give the new SSBN better protection in the deep waters of the South China Sea,” Pinkov stated, using the military acronym for ballistic missile submarine.

Hans M. Kristensen, an analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, said China now has three or four Type-094s.

China over the past decade has built an extensive naval infrastructure for its underwater forces, including upgraded naval bases, submarine hull demagnetization facilities, underground facilities and high-bay buildings for missile storage and handling, and covered tunnels and railways to conceal the activities from prying eyes in the sky.

It is not known if the Chinese will deploy actual nuclear warheads with the submarines or continue the past Chinese practice of keeping warheads in central storage sites for deployment in a crisis.

“The South Sea Fleet naval facilities on Hainan Island are under significant expansion,” Kristensen stated in a recent blog post. “The nuclear submarine base at Longpo has been upgraded to serve as the first nuclear submarine base in the South China Sea.”

The base also includes a submarine tunnel that is part of an underwater complex of nuclear facilities on Hainan.

The Washington Free Beacon first reported in July that China would begin the first sea patrols of the Type 094 some time this year.

China conducted a test flight of the JL-2 missile, the system to be deployed on the Type 094, in August 2012.

A report by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center last year stated that the JL-2 “will, for the first time, allow Chinese SSBNs to target portions of the United States from operating areas located near the Chinese coast.”

China’s jingoistic Global Times on Oct. 28 published an unprecedented report that revealed a nuclear missile strike on the western United States with JL-2 missiles could kill up to 12 million Americans.

The Obama administration and senior Navy officials were silent regarding the nuclear attack threat, which included graphics showing nuclear plumes and collateral damage caused by radiation.

The congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated in a report several years ago that China is planning to deploy an anti-satellite missile on its missile submarines.

Anti-satellite missiles are key elements of China’s anti-access, area denial capabilities designed to drive the U.S. Navy out of Asia.

China only recently began publicizing its nuclear missile submarine forces, mainly through semi-official disclosures on so-called military enthusiast websites.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Monday, May 19, 2014

China has become a global power with extensive outreach to all continents. But it has never been so isolated.

Beijing, perhaps blindsided by its military buildup and a perceived decline in U.S. military capabilities, has revived fear and loathing among several of its 14 bordering neighbours, as well as a host of offshore countries.

China is engaged in tense and frequently armed clashes with countries such as Japan, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines as a result of Beijing’s unyielding territorial claims disputed by its neighbours — claims that had been dormant for decades.

In addition, latent and potential clashes could involve other nations that have territorial disputes with China — such as Malaysia, South Korea, Bhutan, Indonesia, and Brunei.

Of course, China claims all of Taiwan as its own, and the communist mainland and democratic island governments technically still conduct business as adversaries.

Even North Korea has disputes with China over the border region of Baekdu Mountain; and South Korea has challenged Beijing over the Gando [Jiandao] region that covers China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous District.

China has border agreements with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Myanmar. But government-led nationalistic calls for regaining “lost Chinese territories” in those countries have flared increasingly in online media.

China’s strategy to end its isolation appears to blame its regional troubles on Japan and its pre-1945 colonial and wartime atrocities, which Beijing presents as moral justification for getting nasty with Tokyo.

But Japan-bashing is not helping China because most of the territorial disputes have less to do with Japan’s pre-1945 history than with China’s postwar geopolitical calculations. Few are buying China’s argument that today’s free and democratic Japan is endeavouring to revive its pre-1945 militarism and expansionism. China, not Japan, is widely viewed as a destabilising source in the region.

So far, the strategy has backfired.

It has strengthened conservative forces in Japan led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose tough stance in rebuffing China’s propaganda onslaught has made him one of the most popular politicians in postwar Japan. It has forced Washington to officially vow to defend the Japan-administered Senkaku islands should China launch an attack.

And it has driven Japan and India, the two oldest and largest Asian democracies, much closer as allies in a bid to fend off China’s aggressive territorial demands.

More ominous for Beijing is the ascendance of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, who is openly hostile to China and is set to become India’s next prime minister.

Other regional players also are aligning themselves against China, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar, which has been slipping away quickly from China’s influence in recent years.

China’s remedy for the current embarrassment is to drag Russia into the fray to demonstrate some degree of brotherhood against Japan.

But Russia, ostracised in the international community due to its gambit in Ukraine, has refused to play along with China in toto because it wants to befriend some of China’s adversaries, including Vietnam, India, and likely Japan.

While selling a great deal of arms to India and Vietnam for their defence buildup against China, Moscow has refused to take China’s side in the Senkaku dispute. Russia rejected China’s request and public announcement to hold upcoming Sino-Russian naval exercise next to the Senkaku Islands.

Steeped in one of its famed 36 ancient military strategies that dictates “Befriend those at a distance, attack those nearby,” China may have found itself the victim of its own ancient wiles.

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About the Blog and Me

I am 47 years old, living in the Pacific Northwest. I grew up in Kennewick, Boise, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I have lived in every major US city. I am a gunsmith, artist, writer, musician, farmer, ordained minister, and political blogger. Former truck driver, shrimper, logger, and Navy guy.

Damon's Favorite Quotes

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Thomas Jefferson.

Those who would sacrifice liberty for a temporary convenience deserve neither. Ben Franklin

The heart of the wise inclines to the Right, but the heart of the fool to the Left. Ecclesiastes 10:2 (the Bible)

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables. Damon

My beliefs are born from pain, not politics. Damon

While all ideas have a right to be heard, none has an automatic right to be respected. Pat Buchanan

Since the 1980s there has been a great increase in the right to behave badly and an equal decrease in the freedom to behave normally

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

If you need to bring in a business partner, make sure your partner brings along some money.

Remember that what's right isn't always popular, and what is popular isn't always right.

Politics is too important to be left to the politicians.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Coach Lou Holtz

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Unknown Author

One man with courage is a majority. Andrew Jackson

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. Roy Disney

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Confucious